Motorists Fill Up On Old-time Florida At Its Tackiest

May 24, 1991|By Jeff Klinkenberg, St. Petersburg Times.

WILDWOOD, FLA. — Used to be you could have a grand time when you drove around Florida. Why, you were likely to pass just about anything from a gospel revival tent to a big old alligator creeping across the road. And when you stopped for gas, then the real fun began.

Gas stations in old-time Florida were more than places to buy fuel. They often were country stores, roadside zoos and gossip centers rolled into one. While a pimply juvenile delinquent pumped petrol into your chariot, you chewed the fat with the grease-stained mechanic and then walked out back to admire the rattlesnake pit.

In old-time Florida, gas stations had it all.

Well, as you might have noticed, Florida has gotten modern in the past year or so. And so have the ``service stations.`` In their sameness, they have become as dull as homogeneous shopping malls and restaurants.

Most are air-conditioned inside. Most don`t even have mechanics. Some charge you for air. In the big ones along the interstate, you often can buy yogurt and lottery tickets from clerks with manicured nails.

In old-time Florida, gas station restrooms were an adventure, with their overflowing johns, suspiciously grimy seats and lack of toilet paper. Now, hell`s bells, even the toilets are boring. Some modern ``service station``

restrooms appear as if they are scrubbed two, maybe three times a day.

But there is one area that is keeping Florida`s old-time gas station tradition alive.

In Wildwood, where Interstate Highway 75 meets Florida`s Turnpike, where semitrailers howl, where the speed limit is only a rumor, you can stop for gasoline, get a peek at baby alligators, buy a nice bullwhip, think about acquiring a swell shell lamp, gulp a couple of hard-boiled eggs and then rush for a restroom that might make you a tad nervous, depending on how you feel about cigarette butts floating in the wash bowl.

Ah. Real gas stations live.

``Most people, they`re mind-boggled when they come in here,`` said Debbie Farkus, owner of the Texaco A Day in the Country Trading Post just off I-75.

``They`re used to other kinds of places, other kinds of stores. They buy their gas and come in, and well, you can see their eyes get big. This is old- fashioned Florida.``

Debbie Farkus grew up in Wildwood, a small town that always has catered to motorists. Every day, according to the Department of Transportation, about 65,000 vehicles rush by on the way to somewhere else. Near the interstate exit, gas stations-the old-fashioned kind-line State Highway 44. At just about any of them, you can buy oranges, pecan logs, coconuts, cowboy boots and other treasures you won`t unearth at Disney World.

Farkus` station, with $700,000 in inventory, is the largest and most colorful. You know that the moment you pull up. Giant horns from Texas steers hang from the outside walls. There are totem poles, carved by sensitive artists with chain saws. There is a life-size, cigar store-style Indian sitting on a chair next to a bin of oranges. And there is the sign few tourists can resist:

``Live Baby Gators.``

Well, there is one baby gator, a 2-footer, in an aquarium, under a sign that warns: ``Do Not Put Hands In Alligator Tank. He Bites.``

``He`s the drawing card around here,`` said Farkus, who has gotten used to alligators during her 37 years in Florida and seems a bit mystified about what all the fuss is about. ``But I`ll tell you. People like everything about gators.``

She buys alligator products from area alligator farmers. At her old-time gas station, you can buy alligator skulls, alligator claw back scratchers and alligator teeth necklaces.

``People like our snake products, too,`` said Farkus. She sells belts. She sells hats. Hand over $400 in cash, and you`ll go home wearing a cowboy hat made from rattlesnake hide. She`ll sell you a stuffed raccoon for $250.

``You`d be surprised who buys what,`` she said. ``People you wouldn`t expect to buy something like a shell lamp-rich people-will buy a bunch of shell lamps. People`ll buy anything that looks like Florida to them.``

They buy cans of ``Genuine Florida Sunshine.`` They take home bags of

``Florida Sand.`` They claw for their wallets the moment their eyes behold the glory of cypress stump clocks.

``And I have what has to be the largest collection of turquoise anywhere,`` she adds.

The old-time gas station owner also peddles a passel of ``I Survived a Shark Attack`` T-shirts and ``Daddy Went Fishin` And All I Got Was This Lousy Hat`` baseball caps. Near the cash register, not far from the cypress knee carved gnomes and paintings of Plains Indians, are the ``Jesus!`` license plates.

Two steps away, customers can pick up a couple of the aerosol cans that contain Bull---t Repellent. How Great Thou Art meets Great Balls of Fire.

But that`s how old-time Florida, and the deep South, have always been.

It celebrates the holy and the hell-raiser at the same time, often in the same place. It`s nice to find that a little piece of history still exists.